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April 15, 2022

Math Dominates in This Year’s Kravis Concept Plan Competition

AND THE WINNER IS: IMS master's candidate Sam Malagon has taken first place in this year's Kravis Concept Plan Competition.

Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS) students Sam Malagon and Komal Gada are among the winners in this year’s premier event for student and alumni entrepreneurs of The Claremont Colleges, the Kravis Concept Plan Competition.

Established by Henry R. Kravis (a member of the Drucker School’s Board of Visitors) to recognize aspiring entrepreneurs, this annual award provides up to $10,000 in seed money for three winners to help them get their prize-winning concepts off the ground.

The 2022 winners were chosen last week, and Malagon took first place and was awarded $6,000 for the creation of Navfeas, a management system that he describes as “a mission control room for the ocean.”

A master’s student in Computational and Applied Mathematics, Malagon says that Navfeas—which takes its name from an abbreviation of the phrase “navigate what is feasible”—is a consolidated geospatial management system that focuses on spatial planning and monitoring to improve and automate processes for those who are involved in managing our oceanic marine environments.

Malagon calls his prize-winning Navfeas “a mission control room for the ocean.”

A key feature of Navfeas, Malagon explained, is that it provides tools to facilitate data storage, data sharing, and data visualization in real-time for those involved with oceanic marine management.

A second place prize of $3,000 went to Food Decoded creators Anuksha Arsh Gulati, Gabriela Estupiñán, Rozhin Naghdi, and Evan Tanuwidjaja of the Keck Graduate Institute. Food Decoded is a mobile-based application that provides a continuously updated food database that enables consumers to check the food ingredients against their allergy profile for more informed grocery shopping.

The third-place prize of $1,000 went to Komal Gada for Pavanas. A doctoral student in Engineering and Industrial Applied Mathematics, Gada developed the concept of Pavanas to help customers increase their Annual Energy Production (AEP) and reduce overall maintenance expenditures with a cost-effective, custom-built tape to improve the efficiency and lifespan of wind turbine blades.

This year’s judges were CGU trustee and alumna Carolyn Stephens, investor and CMC alumnus Miles Bird, Defy Ventures and Pomona College alumnus CEO Andrew Glazier, and digital healthcare CEO and CGU alumnus Peter Zajac. Also involved in the competition were faculty advisors Professors Kristine Kawamura and Jonathan Neil.